CBC's president and CEO Robert Rabinovitch defended management's decision to lock out its 5,500 unionized workers, saying it was the "last resort" in a prolonged labour dispute that showed no signs of resolving.

"We should have been able over 15 months to work toward an agreement, but the lack of progress and the union leadership statements made it clear there would be a work stoppage," he said in his address to the standing committee on Canadian Heritage Thursday.

"Our choice on Aug. 14 was straightforward -- wait and let the union strike at a time of their choosing when Canadians would be deprived of critical programming, or bring the negotiations to a head at a relatively quiet time of year."

Rabinovitch added that the management made the decision after it appeared negotiations had reached an impasse.

"The lockout is a blunt instrument. Just as a strike is the final recourse of labour, the lockout is indeed the last resort, the final action available to management to force movement in stagnant negotiations," he said.

Committee member Charlie Angus, NDP MP for Timmins-James Bay, asked Rabinovitch how he would respond to critics that said CBC stabbed the Canadians in the back.

"I respond by saying it was a matter of timing, it was a matter of choice," Rabinovitch said.

He explained that an earlier lockout was preferable, when the programming schedule was the lightest, to a strike later in the year.

"Either you do it in August and September, or you do it in October and November, perhaps in the middle of the election, perhaps at the Olympics (February 2006)," he said.

Rabinovitch also told the parliamentary committee that CBC and Radio-Canada, its French service, will need to be restructured to achieve excellence and remain competitive.

That will mean increased use of freelance and contract workers as well as permanent staff as CBC struggles with tight funding.

Other members of CBC's senior management team also faced questions over their role in the bitter eight-week lockout that ended earlier this month.

Rabinovitch; Richard Stursberg, VP of English Television; Jane Chalmers, VP of English Radio; and Sylvain LaFrance, VP of all French Services were before the committee Thursday to account for their role in the dispute.

The Canadian Media Guild is also looking for answers.

According to the union, Rabinovitch infuriated the guild's membership when he made an appearance on CBC Radio's The Current on Oct. 17.

CMG National President Lise Lareau said Rabinovitch's response to whether he would do it again was "unsettling."

"Knowing what I know now, nothing has changed," he said on the show. "We were still looking at a situation where the negotiations were not moving forward, but were stalled."

But Lareau says the lockout was avoidable.

"It was the work of a team of senior managers who knew what they wanted, whether or not it was something that was really needed by the CBC and the people who put on programmes," Lareau says in a written statement.

"And they were willing to take extraordinary risks with a Canadian institution to get it."

At the heart of the labour dispute was a CBC plan to hire more contract workers, which the union opposed.

The lockout ended earlier this month after 88.4 per cent of the 3,514 Guild members who voted chose to accept the proposed contract.

CBC wages are to rise by 12.6 per cent over the life of the contract, which runs through March 31, 2009, including full retroactivity and a $1,000 signing bonus.